


Not Yet

by vizzie1



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Civil War Team Iron Man, Dark, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Internal Conflict, Not Canon Compliant, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Siberian bunker, Suicide, Tony is not at the bunker, but i thought the tag was relevant, i mean none of team iron man is actually in this, value of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 02:37:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17952053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vizzie1/pseuds/vizzie1
Summary: Steve and Bucky make it to the Siberian bunker, where Zemo has awoken the other winter soldiers. Bucky can't help but compare himself to them and wonders why no one (even Steve) seems to care about these men's lives.





	Not Yet

**Author's Note:**

> First things first: I own nothing. I'm making no money on this. And I've got no beta, so... sorry?
> 
> Tags: Let me know if they need to be updated. I tried to be cautious, but I may have missed something.
> 
> Mood: This is super angsty, dark, and depressing. Be wary.
> 
> I don't know why I wrote this. This is like black pit of despair angsty, which is worse than my usual. But I started writing and this is where I finished, so hopefully someone out there likes it :)

Bucky stays at Steve’s six as they make their way into the Siberian bunker. When the passage opens into a large room, they see five strong young men in black uniforms standing at parade rest with blank looks on their faces. They’re armed, but not attacking- not even moving- so Bucky keeps them in his peripheral vision while taking in the rest of the room. It doesn’t take him long to spot Zemo in the back room and fire shots at his head and heart, unfortunately, stopped by the bulletproof glass between them.

Before he can do anything else, Zemo’s voice comes through the loudspeakers. “We’ve been waiting for you, _Soldat_. Me and your brothers in arms. Didn’t want to get started before collecting the whole set.” Steve is growling louder and tensing tighter with every word. Bucky may have broken his conditioning, but he remembers his training- along with everything else. In Bucharest, he had just started to think he might be able to live an anonymous life, away from neo-nazi paramilitary organizations and stalker ex-bffs and nutjob Sokovians. But he’s back on alert now and isn’t riled by Zemo’s speech.

Besides, the guy’s clearly crazy, but he’s not wrong- about this anyway. What separates Bucky from the empty soldiers in front of him but a little too much time out of cryo and a well-timed blast from the past? He’s looking at mirrors of who he was for over half a century, who he could be again for anyone with the right words. And who knows how many people that is? Heck, people still haven’t finished sifting through the Hydra data dump; it might not be long until everyone in the world has the key to his compliance.

“You will not turn Bucky into a mindless puppet again!” Steve yells. Bucky looks back at the five winter soldiers, wondering who there is to fight for these men, for who they used to be, and- if Bucky is an example- for who they could still be? Definitely not him and Steve. They came here to kill the soldiers. These men are monsters; they are threats. But so was he. So _is_ he. “I won’t let you!”

Without turning away from the other winter soldiers, Bucky asks him, “Why?” his voice showing his confusion.

Steve, thinking the answer so obvious and uncomplicated, replies, “Because I’m your friend.” Certainly, the men in front of him also had friends: friends who looked for them; friends who mourned them; friends who would do anything to know what happened to them. But they never will know, because he and Steve are going to kill them and leave them to rot in a Siberian Hydra bunker. If this is the right thing to do, it doesn’t feel so right.

“He’s your friend, hm?” Zemo asks, sounding delighted. “Seems like you can’t always protect your friends…”

When the video plays, Bucky almost immediately remembers the mission, the kills. From country to country, they’ve been running from a man bent on revenge for his father’s death. But it was the wrong man. The right crime, but the wrong man. How will Steve react when he realizes that all of his defenses were only half-truths? That he’s been defending a friend, but also the murderer of a friend?

Screams and pleas ring in his ears, and Bucky can’t watch anymore. He hesitantly looks over to Steve and can’t quite comprehend what he’s seeing. Steve’s face is blank, his eyes cold and emotionless as he watches his innocent friends die horrible, painful deaths. If he didn’t know any better, Bucky would think that Steve was one of the winter soldiers; same face, different costume.

But right now, all that matters is the one guy behind the glass. After the video ends, Zemo only makes it to the second trigger word before Steve is running towards the back room to stop him. It doesn’t take long for Steve to beat down the door and kill Zemo, definitely not long enough for him to finish the sequence of words to control Bucky, but plenty of time for him to give quick orders to the other five winter soldiers.

The fight is ferocious. Steve and Bucky are better armed, have more combat experience, and are better at fighting beyond mission orders, so the five-on-two battle is actually well-matched. When the first one dies at Bucky’s hand, he cries out, and Bucky hears the cries of his men on the European front. He trained these men, the winter soldiers. He didn’t do it willingly, but neither did they.

When the second one falls before him, Bucky sees Howard collapsing on the road. These men, too, are someone’s loved ones, someone’s friends. Do they not deserve justice?

This is his last fight. Steve is winning against the other remaining winter soldier. And the one in front of him just keeps coming. When Bucky looks up at his face, he sees blue eyes and dark hair. Then he’s just looking at himself: a fighter, a soldier, a follower. He doesn’t want to kill this man. He wants to save him, but he doesn’t know if he can… or if he should.

At that moment, the other man finally gets in a stab to his heart, but it’s just a little too high and deflects off the metal plating in his shoulder. In the opening that creates, Bucky hesitates, but Steve makes the last move, having just finished off his own opponent.

As Bucky takes a moment to take in the death and destruction that surrounds them, he sees Steve surveying the room with a satisfied glimmer in his eyes. They have killed, necessary or not. They have killed, and Bucky feels no satisfaction in that.

As Steve reaches for Bucky’s arm, ready to leave the bunker, Bucky shifts slightly away. “Buck, it’s over.”

Raising his handgun to his own head, Bucky replies, “No, it’s not. Not yet.”

“Buck! Bucky! It’s me, Steve. Your friend,” Steve confusedly stumbles. “You’re not under their control anymore. You’re Bucky, and it’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“No, Steve,” Bucky replies, looking directly into his eyes. “It’s not going to be okay. I am just like these men here. We don’t know how many people know the trigger words, and we don’t know how to defend against them being used.”

“But Bucky,” Steve objects. “We will find you a cure for their triggers. We won’t stop looking until you are completely free. Until then, you’ve broken their mind control before. You can do it again if needed. I’ll be there with you to help.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Even when I’m free of Hydra’s control, Steve, I’m just as dangerous to innocents as the Winter Soldier. Maybe I was corrupted by the serum, or the torture, or the training, or maybe it was always in me, but I leave a trail of death and destruction wherever I go. Just look at DC, Bucharest, Berlin… here.” He gestures as the bloody corpses around them.

Hearing, but not understanding, Bucky’s concerns, Steve argues, “Bucky, no. You did what you had to do. And I was right there with you.”

He allows a small smile at Bucky’s nod. Steve’s words settling in, Bucky remembers watching on tv Steve and Natasha’s uncaring response to the deaths in DC. Then, he thinks of Steve’s refusal to even attempt peaceful resolutions in Bucharest and Berlin. At the airport, he had been surprised at his team’s unhesitating willingness to fight full-strength against (former?) teammates. He can still see Steve’s callous expression watching the video of his friend being brutally murdered. And, of course, the same Steve who tried so hard to save him on the helicarrier, who tried so hard to save him from legal justice, and who is trying so hard to save him now- this same Steve didn’t even consider saving the lives of the men around them, the lives of the men _just like him_.

Breaking the silence, Bucky concedes, “You’re right, Steve. You were.” And before Steve even has time to register what’s happening, Bucky has turned the gun on him. One to the head, one to the heart. He’s dead before he hits the ground.

 _Now, Steve, it’s over_ , Bucky thinks before turning the gun on himself.


End file.
